Ocker wrote:What are your opinions on 'boat people' and detention camps?
I lived and still live in the holidays in Whyalla, which is about 30 minutes away from Baxter.
I also get both sides of the propaganda war about the detainees and the detention centres, as my father works for the local Federal member for most of South Australia and my high school with its religious affiliation was pretty heavily against the detention centres and the Howard government.
Out of it all, I have desperately tried to form an opinion, but failed. I have a tendency to believe that the government is acting in our best interests, and to a degree I can sympathse with the idea that the people entering our country must be regulated, but at the same time people are suffering, to a degree as a result of this belief.
I have heard stories about 'boat people' who use the detention centres wrongly, who bring misery upon themselves for whatever reason, and others within the centre it is these people who are setting fore to buildings and property that costed the government and taxpayers millions of dollars.
One thing that i do know, and strongly believe is that the centres should be run by the government, not by a private company which treats the contract with no delicacy at all, and probably just serves to make things worse.
I also know that a lot of people who are protesting the detention centre and acting to get the free are a bunch of unreasonable nutters. (Most, not all).
Heres a small story of my personal experience with the Detainees and the system surrounding them...
I work for a regional paper, and at the time the centre was releasing detainees into our community for a program run by the catholic church. I got word of this through my school (some children detainees were held at the school) a couple of days prior and rang up the minister for immigration and requested to take some photo's of the refugees. I was granted permission by the government and I asked that it could be known to the Baxter employees that I was coming.
They said it was fine, they just requested that I blur the faces and dont get any names to protect the identity of the children. Which is fair enough considering their circumstances.
The children seemed pretty normal and healthy from what I could see. They were playing games and thoroughly enjoying their trip to our school.
When I rocked up to take a few simple photo's I was intersected by a guard, who had a fresh scar on his face who told me in no uncertain terms that i could not take any pictures. It seems he was told that I was coming, and he decided that it would be best if I didn't take photo's.
The reason given was that it could make the children cause trouble. he also requested that the article of their visit not to be written, simply because that if it was known in the community that detainees were visiting our community that members of the community would aoppose to this and their visits would end.
I felt pretty bullied, but left it alone. I found it strange that the guard could hold that control over me. When I got back to the office, I made a few more inquries and it turns out I could take photo's, the general manager at baxter told me that i had permission.... it seems that one guard took it upon himself to prevent me from taking photo's that I had full permission to take. So much for free press and all that bullshit. This is one of the reasons I'm opposed to the centre being privately run.
More so, I felt a little guilty for writing the story, because it went front page, without photo's under the editors guide. Quite a few members in the community were opposed and the visits were stopped. It seems by printing the story I pissed off both the Baxter management and the detainee advocates. ironic, huh?
Anyway, I'd like to hear what other people have to say.
I...dis... di.... AGREE... with Efrem. 
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